


Christmas Cheer

by Carenejeans



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Christmas, Humor, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-14
Updated: 2009-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 17:13:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carenejeans/pseuds/Carenejeans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strange things happen at a Christmas party... oooweeeeoooo</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Cheer

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Contains a cute child, a pet, gourmet food, an angel or two, the baby Jesus, and a talking goat.

The loft was a circus.

 

Methos had bounded up the stairs, avoiding the lift out of impatience and claustrophobia, but now hesitated in the doorway. He could enter or go; he was still at the threshold, the fork, the crossroads. As he lingered, the lift clanked into place and the bars pulled up to disgorge a load of merrymaking guests. Most of them immortals, from the way his skin was crawling. He eased back into the little corner and was just stepping backwards to flee, flee this ill-favored gathering when he spotted Duncan.

 

And, unfortunately, Duncan spotted him.

 

Methos sighed and gave in to the inevitable. He came into the room a only few feet -- the press of the crowd was considerable in any case -- and kept his back to the wall. He was immediately set upon by an extremely tall man with a face like a flattened basketball. He bent slightly, offering a tray.

 

"Have a drink."

 

"No thanks," Methos said, his eyes on Duncan.

 

"I said have a drink!" the man barked. Methos jumped, so surprised by this odd display of hospitality that he took a glass from the tray. The man stalked off to intimidate another guest, and Methos idly sipped the drink, frowning a bit at the taste. Sweet? Tart? He couldn't decide. He took another sip, rolling it around his tongue. Strange. He'd have to ask Duncan what it was.

 

Duncan pushed through the melee towards him, kissing women in dresses that were long in the skirt and short in the bust, shaking hands with affable men, bowing over the hands of elderly dowagers, greeting sleek men and women in stylish, long coats, chiding them and pointing them to a closet already stuffed to the sides with similar long coats, cold steel hidden among the folds.

 

Methos watched all this with something bordering on awe -- where it wasn't bordering on exasperation. Only Duncan MacLeod could get this many immortals in a room together without bloodshed. Which was all the more impressive since only Duncan MacLeod was beset by an immortal wanting his head on an almost weekly basis. Hello, it's Tuesday, draw your sword.

 

Duncan leaned against the wall next to Methos. "You came."

 

"Yes. You happy?"

 

"Yes," Duncan said smugly.

 

Methos just snorted. "Who _are_ these people? And -- what the hell is _that_?

 

A girl of perhaps twelve, a softly glowing blue-eyed blond, wearing a full taffeta skirt and polished mary jane shoes, was slowly twirling and apparently singing to herself. The crowd made space around her, though nobody was watching her. On the contrary, people's eyes seemed to slide away from her. Methos thought he saw a woman make a surreptitious sign as she looked away.

 

The girl held a leash, which fell almost to the floor, but not quite. It was attached to a wiener-shaped dog that stood no higher than six inches, a mangy, scabby, flea-bitten dog with malevolent pop-eyes and teeth that looked no less dangerous for some of them being missing.

 

"Are you talking about the girl or the dog?" Duncan said, looking at him sideways.

 

"The -- dog. Though the girl is--" he narrowed his eyes and cocked his head to the side. He had a sudden strange feeling of vertigo. "There's something off about the girl, too."

 

"It's not a girl," Duncan said. "Technically."

 

"Not a girl?" Methos peered at the person in question. "A cross-dressing twelve-year old?"

 

Duncan smiled, but just as he was about to speak he was mashed against the wall by someone who was very obviously all girl.

 

"Amanda," Duncan said.

 

"Darling," Amanda sighed. "You know the _loveliest_ people." She gave Duncan a sturdy peck and then turned her radiance on him. "Methos!"

 

"Hello Amanda," Methos said, as he was mashed against the wall in turn. "How nice to feel -- see you."

 

She made a face at him and he received his peck on the cheek. "I'm starving, how about you?" Amanda gathered them both like a mother swan rounding up her ducklings, and hauled them towards the kitchen area. "Look at this spread," she waved her arms over an impressive array of fancy party foods. All fiddly stuff, Methos thought crossly, as he selected a puffy, crunchy thing from a dish, and pretending it was only good. It made his tastebuds stand up and sing hallelujah, but he wasn't going to let on.

 

"Did you make all of this yourself?" Amanda said, letting Duncan know, from the look on her face, that the morsel she'd just put in her mouth was good enough to set off an orgasm.

 

Duncan beamed. "Yes. Here, try this one."

 

"Ohhhh..." Amanda bit into a tiny square of pastry and her eyes rolled up in her head.

 

 

Methos had been to the loft yesterday, to find Duncan amidst a towering pile of pans, tins, ramekins, molds, sheets and forms for cakes, cookies, tarts and candy. He was dusted in sugar and flour, smiling through a streak of icing that had made Methos want to push him up against the sink and lick it off.

 

So he did.

 

"Is there more of this?" he'd asked, kissing Duncan's smiling mouth. "I could dribble a bit here," he touched Duncan's chest, "and here," he squeezed Duncan's cock, hard under his fingers.

 

But Duncan just laughed and pushed him away. "Later, maybe. I've got petit fours to finish."

 

Methos leaned against the counter and watched him with a pleasure he hid under carping. "You can pay people to do this," he said, waving his hand at the table Duncan had set up to hold his finished masterpieces. "In fact, I know of a great little shop that sells chocolates that are out of this world." He'd felt his eyes glaze over at the memory of that little shop and the strange woman with the magical touch with chocolate.

 

Duncan's eyes were a little soft as he, too, remembered. He'd been the recipient of the magic chocolate. But he shook himself. "It's not the same. Not at Christmas."

 

"I suppose you're going to hike out into the snow and chop down a yule log, too?"

 

"Already did that," Duncan said with a grin. "It's hanging in the basement."

 

Methos narrowed his eyes at Duncan, and then shuddered. "I believe you," he said.

 

Duncan laughed, and turned back to his truffles and pfeffernusse and mincemeat tarts.

 

But the worst of it was...

 

"What's that?" Methos had pointed to a large sheet of paper pinned to the kitchen wall. It was a sketch, a Celtic design, all angles and curls and circles within squares.

 

"My design. For an ice sculpture."

 

"An _ice sculpture_? You've got to be kidding."

 

"Nope."

 

"You're going to carve that -- that-- impossible design?"

 

"Yes." Duncan expertly poured icing over tiny cake squares.

 

Methos studied the design. "Where'd you get the idea for this? Some old Celtic ritual from your infancy?"

 

Duncan smiled down at his cakes. "Martha Stewart."

 

Methos threw up his hands. "That does it. I'm out of here. I'll see you on Christmas, if I don't get on a plane to Bora Bora like I would if I had any sense when it comes to you."

 

"Fine," Duncan said, unruffled and absorbed in his baking. "See you then."

 

 

Now, as Methos stood before the ice sculpture, he had to admit it was impressive. It was bigger than he'd thought it would be, rising from the table in a glittering, delicate sweep of ice that belied its mass. It seemed to glow from within, its facets here and shining curves there seeming to send out light and color into the room rather than merely reflecting it.

 

"It's _fabulous_," Amanda said.

 

"It's weird." Methos peered at it. It almost seemed to move, and the center, a circle divided into four equal parts by a Celtic cross, was difficult to look at . Blurry. As if it weren't all there. Or as it were half _here_ and half -- elsewhere. Methos looked down at his glass. It was empty. He didn't remember drinking it all, but it was gone. And whatever it was, it was potent.

 

But Amanda wasn't listening. She'd been waltzed away by a good-looking man in a frock coat, and before Methos could wonder why the man was wearing a frock coat, he felt Duncan's arms circle him from behind. He stiffened, feeling a bit self-conscious, but a quick look around told him nobody was paying attention to them, wrapped up in their own merry-making.

 

"Don't say 'bed, now,' because it's already covered with canoodling guests," he said.

 

Duncan chuckled in his ear, a low, deep sound of contentment that rooted Methos to the floor. "Hell, just take me here," he said, and Duncan pressed against him. "Ah, God." He closed his eyes.

 

And snapped them open again as pain shot through his ankle.

 

"Bloody hell!" He looked down. The ugly little dog had sunk its yellowed -- but still sharp -- teeth into him.

 

"You shouldn't curse," the little golden-haired, blue-eyed girl said primly. "God doesn't like cursing on Christmas."

 

Methos shook the dog off his ankle and tried to give it a kick, but it ducked his boot, and ran back and forth like a yapping wind-up toy.

 

"Close to God, are you?" Methos said sourly.

 

"Oh, yes," said the little golden girl. "We're like _this_." She held up two fingers close together.

 

"Well, can you make your pet behave? I'm sure God doesn't approve of ankle-biting on Christmas."

 

"Feets!" The girl's voice took on a sudden authority, resounding past the borders of hearing.

 

Methos blinked.

 

The air around her shimmered and for a brief moment the little-girl-ness of her faded. In its place was something that seemed to be all light and wings. Methos blinked again and a little golden-haired, blue-eyed, peach-skinned girl looked up at him with winsome innocence.

 

"What--" Methos swallowed. He shook his head.

 

She smiled. Feets glared at him, pop-eyed.

 

"Drink!" The tall man with the mashed-basketball face glided between them. Methos took a drink. The man glided away. Methos stared at his glass and cast about for something more or less neutral to say.

 

"Why do you call him Feets?" His drank from the glass. _Sweet or bitter?_ "Because he bites people's ankles?"

 

"Because he's _smelly_," the girl said, wrinkling her pert little nose.

 

"Then why do you keep him?" Methos noticed a light dusting of freckles across her nose. "Why not get a pretty little dog?" Feets growled at him.

 

The girl looked at him solemnly. "I keep Feets to remind me the Devil exists."

 

_Of course,_ Methos thought. "Right. We'll he's as good a reminder as any."

 

"Your friend is Gone," the little girl said.

 

Methos spun around. Duncan wasn't behind him. Methos scanned the crowd, but Duncan was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Amanda. He looked around for a familiar face but there was no one in the room he recognized. He felt his blood chill.

 

He was in a room full of unfamiliar immortals.

 

"Where did he go? Where's Amanda?" Methos demanded. Only the memory of real or imagined winged fire kept him from taking the little brat by the shoulders and shaking her.

 

"There." The girl raised a delicate hand and pointed to the ice sculpture.

 

Methos stared. The thing seemed to have grown since he last looked at it. It towered over him as he stood before it, watching the light skitter over its surface, the color pulse from within.

 

"Take a drink!"

 

The man's grating voice clashed with the graceful vision. Methos looked up at the scowling man and took a glass from the tray.

 

"You'll need that," the girl advised.

 

Methos nodded and drained it in one gulp. He turned to put the empty glass on the tray, but the mashed-face man was gone. Methos looked around uneasily. The party was as noisy and merry as ever, but there was a growing space around him, the girl, and the table with the ice sculpture.

 

"Go." Methos felt as if something made of wings and light commanded him.

 

"Uh, right." _Go?_ he thought. _Go where? _

 

_There, idiot,_ said something in his head. The same something nudged him towards the ice sculpture. He reached out to touch it.

 

_"Finally,"_ said the little golden-haired girl in the taffeta dress. "I thought he'd never leave."

 

Feets barked.

 

 

 

Methos fell from a short drop into what felt like a sandbox.

 

"Fucking hell," he muttered, and floundered upright.

 

Not a sandbox. A desert.

 

"Don't curse, Methos," Amanda said. "God doesn't like cursing on Christmas."

 

"When does he like it?" Methos said, gaining his feet and beating sand out of his shirt. "Can I make an appointment?"

 

"Come on." Amanda linked her arm though his.

 

"Where's Duncan?"

 

"Here." Duncan nabbed his other arm. They stamped along through the sand, three together.

 

"All for one, one for all," Methos said. "Off to see the Wizard?"

 

"Bethlehem," Duncan said.

 

"Oh, he--ck," Methos said.

 

 

_Methos was not a particularly religious man, and only occasionally a Christian -- a decade here, a century there, when it suited him, or when it was expedient, or when he fell in love with a priest who kept bees. To tell the truth, with the props given here, that is, a desert, a beautiful woman on one arm and a beautiful man on the other, a moonlit desert night -- and is that a tent, there? Why yes, it is! -- Methos's thoughts would not automatically turn to Bethlehem..._

 

Methos looked with pleasure upon the slave kneeling before him. The man was beautiful, easily the most beautiful man Methos had ever seen, slave or free. But he was more beautiful as a slave, bowed, kneeling naked before him, trembling in his need and desire, his bronzed skin lit by the warm light of the candles set around his tent, candles an equally -- though differently -- beautiful woman was carefully lighting around the tent. He looked from one to the other, feasting his greedy gaze first on the man's dark muscled body, and then on her light, lithe form. They both pleased him.

 

But at present the man pleased him more, as he knelt, begging in a hushed voice, as if he couldn't bear to speak aloud but couldn't bear not to, to only be allowed to please him, Methos, his master.

 

"Amanda, dear, come sit beside me, yes, that's good," he said as she flowed against him on the pillows, her body warm against his. "And watch carefully as he pleasures me with his mouth." Methos smiled as Duncan looked up, his face radiant with happiness. "For he is an expert -- no, an artist." Duncan bent his head over Methos's cock and touched his tongue to it. Methos heard Amanda's gasp as his own breath caught, heard her echo his own groan of pleasure as Duncan took him deep into his mouth.

 

_Yes, the noble Highlander was indeed an artist. He--_

 

 

"Ow!" The tent, the candles, the warmth on his cock all faded abruptly. Duncan was glaring at him, poised to knock him on the head again. Amanda snickered.

 

"Come on," Duncan said. "We can play Desert Prince later. We've got something to do here."

 

"Well, let's hurry, then, shall we?" Methos said testily, trying in vain to recapture the candle-lit tent in his thoughts. He trudged between them on the gritty, silvery sand, as Duncan scanned the night sky for an omen.

 

"There," he said, pointing. "In the East."

 

"A star," Amanda breathed.

 

"Looks more like a searchlight to me," Methos said. "Maybe when we'll get there they'll have a blue light special."

 

"It's Christmas, Methos. Can't you please get into the spirit?"

 

"Do you have to be such an old grump?" Amanda chimed in, punching him lightly on the arm.

 

"No, and yes," Methos said. Then he sighed. "Fine. Christmas spirit. Coming up." And he hummed "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" all the way to the manger.

 

"Standard set, cut-away," Methos said, as they stood before the manger. "Complete with farm animals, Wise Men and an Angel in a dress."

 

"This is not a dress," the Angel said haughtily. "It's a proper manly angelic robe."

 

"Sorry, my mistake," Methos said. "Where's the little guy?"

 

The angel frowned, twitched his manly robe about him, and pointed with flourish. The Infant, glowing golden in the desert night, was wrapped up in swaddling clothes and displayed in a basket filled with straw. Mary and Joseph, a raft of shepherds, Three (3) Wise Men and a handful of other lookers-on gathered around. Duncan and Amanda joined them, looking down at the baby with awe.

 

Methos was more interested in the animals. Did they really speak on this night? He sidled up close to a goat, and lo, the goat was muttering to an ass which stood nearby with a somewhat stiff look of sympathy on its face.

 

"And could it hurt her to warm up her fingers before yanking on my teats? It's cold in the morning! How would she feel if I did the same to her, I ask you. Just warm the ol' mitts over the fire for a few minutes, that's all I ask. And why so early in the morning? Maybe she likes to get up at the butt-crack of dawn, but me, I could use another hour of shut-eye. I work hard all day, you know. It's not easy chewing up grain sacks and tent stakes. I need my forty winks. And listen to this. The other day, she..."

 

Methos backed away from the animals to stand close to Duncan.

 

The Three Wise Men finished laying their gifts before the Infant, and retreated, bowing and muttering prayers. Mary smiled, and Methos thought he caught a glimpse of mischief in her eyes as she lifted the Infant from the straw and held the baby high for everyone to see. Suddenly, she whisked away the swaddling clothes, and Methos found himself gasping along with everyone else at the sight of the tiny, holy body.

 

"Behold!" Mary proclaimed joyously. "It's a girl!"

 

Joseph sighed and threw the packet of blue-wrapped cigars to the goat.

 

 

 

"I never did trust those reports out of Bethlehem," Methos said. The three of them trudged through the desert sand. He was in good spirits. He hummed a few bars of "Away in a Manger."

 

Duncan looked a bit stunned. Amanda looked thoughtful, and a little smug.

 

"So, how do we get home from here? Anyone got any ruby slippers? No? Then--"

 

He took a step and fell off the edge of the world.

 

 

 

Methos opened his eyes on darkness. No, not quite. There was some soft golden light flickering here and there, as if someone had lit--

 

"Ungh!" He sat up abruptly. Amanda, who had been snuggled up against him, woke with a start and sat up sleepily next to him.

 

The loft was quiet. There were still a few people lingering here and there, clutching mistletoe and necking in dark corners, or talking quietly in the candlelight, looking sated and satisfied.

 

"Duncan?" Methos said tentatively.

 

"Hmm?" Duncan materialized out of the shadows and sat in a chair pulled up next to the bed. "Are my sleeping beauties awake?" He smiled.

 

"What-- what happened?" Methos put his hands on head. "Ow."

 

Amanda yawned and stretched, and looked at him like a cat looks at cream.

 

"Uh-oh. Did I do anything--?" Methos hesitated.

 

Duncan and Amanda smiled at each other.

 

"I'll take that as a yes," Methos said. "I had the weirdest -- dream."

 

"Desert Prince," Duncan said.

 

"Naked slave boys -- and girls," Amanda said.

 

"No, I mean, yes, but -- wait, how do you know that?"

 

They exchanged smiles again.

 

"Wait -- not here -- not with everybody --"

 

Duncan threw back his head and laughed. Amanda poked him in the side. "Duncan's been... renovating the building," she said, smiling sweetly.

 

"Right..." Methos looked from one to the other.

 

"Right, so -- tonight he unveiled the Special Room." She winked broadly at him.

 

"It was a Christmas present," Duncan said. "You loved it -- didn't he love it, Amanda?"

 

"But I--"

 

Amanda whooped. Several heads swiveled in their direction. "And you got so drunk you don't remember any of it! Oh, priceless!"

 

"Well, it's not _my_ fault!" He glared at Duncan. "That-- thug-faced server you hired forced drinks on me!" He frowned. "And they were _weird_ drinks, too. What was in them?"

 

"What thug-faced server?" Duncan looked blank.

 

"The one who ordered people to take drinks. He looked like an extra in a mob movie from the thirties."

 

"I didn't hire anyone like that."

 

"And that little girl -- the satanic dog -- the ice sculpture -- and the trip to-- to-- huh."

 

Duncan and Amanda looked at him expectantly.

 

"Never mind." Methos felt like a chump. Angels and time travel and infants in mangers! He didn't care what Duncan said, someone had slipped him a mickey. On the other hand... he brightened.

 

"Could we play Desert Prince again?"

 

Amanda shoved at him. Duncan stood and bowed, then took his hand and hauled him up off the bed.

 

"Your wish is my command, Oh Master."

 

Methos smiled and followed him into the desert.

 

 

\--The End!


End file.
